Urusei Yatsura, also known as Lum, Lamu, the Invader Girl, or Those Obnoxious Aliens, is a well-known late 70s to 80s manga (1978-1987) and anime (1981-1986) series created by Rumiko Takahashi. The English translation of the manga, published by Viz Communications, was divided into 2 series titled Lum and The Return of Lum, named after the main character. The manga received the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981. The anime version spanned 6 films, 11 OVAs, and 195 half hour TV episodes (comprising 218 separate stories, as the first season's episodes consisted of two fifteen-minute segments), which originally premiered across Japan on the terrestrial Fuji Television network between 1981-1986, and was later aired across Japan by the anime satellite television network, Animax, who have also broadcast the series across its respective networks worldwide, including Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Asia and other regions. The series was also aired in France from 1988 on TF1 and later across the United States on PBS, from 1998. [1] AnimEigo is the North American distributor for all of these except the second movie "Beautiful Dreamer", which is distributed by Central Park Media. There were also about half a dozen episodes translated and dubbed in the United Kingdom and shown as Lum the Invader Girl on BBC Choice shortly after its launch.